Yorktown's First Action? A German Submarine's Target!
Yorktown's first action occurred in the summer of 1943 when she was near Cuba on the way to the Pacific via the Panama Canal. It was in the vicinity of what was then referred to as "Torpedo Alley" (where German submarines congregated to prey upon Allied shipping.) |
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YORKTOWN SUFFERS FIVE DEAD AS RESULT OF DIRECT JAPANESE ATTACK Her first and only bomb hit by enemy action |
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It was March 18, 1945 A Japanese plane, a Judy, dropped out of the clouds unexpectedly and was dead ahead. Seconds after the plane was sighted, its pilot dropped his bomb. This traveled almost horizontally toward the ship.The gunners managed to knock the Judy out of the sky as its pilot attempted to pull his plane out of the run. The pilot was picked up, but the other man in the plane was killed. As the gunners were shooting the Judy out of the sky, the Yorktown was hit by the enemy.Only a second had passed since the bomb had hit the Yorktown. The next few seconds would change the lives of 23 men. Without warning, the bomb hit the 20mm gun gallery below the signal bridge. Get the complete story Click Here! |
USS YORKTOWN SINKS JAPANESE BATTLESHIP YAMATO April 7, 1945 |
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| The Japanese battleship Yamato was the BIGGEST battleship ever built.It was a monster of well over 75,000 tons fully loaded.As dawn broke with the customary overcast, the Yorktown sent a flight of fighters to patrol Okinawa. At 0830, word of the sighting came from an Essex search plane, just off the southwest coast of Kyushu. It was the Yamato, along with the cruiser Yahagi plus eight destroyers. At 1038, the Yorktown began launching her 43 planes—more than half an hour behind the other groups. [from article, “Taps for the Torpecker,” Clark G. Reynolds]. As strike leader of Flight Group #9, Herb Houck indicated, “I hovered over the Jap fleet at about 1,000 feet in order to see the entire field of operation below and coordinate the attack. “Our primary target actually was the escorting cruiser Yahagi and accompanying destroyers. Six TBMs would go in on the high side that exposed the underbelly so that the torpedo would hit below the thicker armor plate. I saw the runs and figured they got at least 5 hits. With the 20-degree listing the torpedoes exploded right into the belly of the ship. A couple minutes later the Yamato rolled over and blew up. Thanks to Bob Wallace |
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